Nicole Hollander
American cartoonist and writer.
(Man in bar) I like an older woman. (Sylvia) I'll pass that along.
(Sylvia) I'm planning to live fast, die young, and make a good looking corpse. (Bartender Harry) I think you're off schedule.
(Man at bar) You know the kind of woman I could really go for? . . . Someone intelligent, witty, passionate about her work, totally involved in life, and willing to give it all up for me. (pp. 216-217)
(Man on television) If women want time off to bear children, they can't expect to be treated as equals. (Sylvia) Okay, give men time off to bear children.
(Television) Spray and wash gets out what America gets into. (Sylvia) Send some to El Salvador.
(Sylvia at typewriter) Common misunderstandings of young married couples. (Young husband to tearful wife) Jeannie, when I said that your dinner tasted like airplane food, that was meant as a compliment.
(Telephone) Hi, this is Sylvia's opinion hotline....How fair are you? Would you support laws mandating discrimination in hiring, housing, and employment against anyone who lacked a sense of humor, knowing that these laws would impact most heavily on fundamentalists?
(Sylvia) In the beginning Eve was alone in Eden. (Eve) Everything is so beautiful and amicable. (Serpent) I bet deep down, you wish you had an irritating companion. (pp. 94-95)
(Man in bar) Can you imagine a world without men? (Sylvia) No crime, and lots of happy, fat women. (pp. 212-213)
(Dr. Paul Johns, animal linguist, on cats) It seems their entire language consists of two phrases, uttered with varying degrees of intensity: "Hurry that dinner, willya" and "Everything here is mine."
(Sylvia’s answering machine) Hi, at the sound of the beep please tell me what you like best about me.
(Sylvia) There’s not enough coffee in the whole world to turn me into a functional human being.
(Television) We are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so that we will not have to face them in our own country. (Sylvia) Oh, good. So once we get rid of those, there won't be any more.
(Signs on refrigerator) Could be a leftover tuna casserole inside...Or one of those pesky, black...U.N. helicopters.
(Sylvia) Rita! Did you hear that! Tax cuts benefit the rich! Oh, the shock! Quick, get my medication! (Rita) Plain, or with peanuts?
(Sylvia driving to nervous passenger Venusian Gernif) Don't be silly. You're not going to be the first interplanetary traveler to die in a Chevy.
(Man on television) Man is the hunter. Woman is the civilizing influence, and when women abandon that role, men become (Sylvia) Cranky, and start wars.
(Second Bad Girl) Women who form relationships with murderers [in prison]. I don't get it. (First bad girl) Well, you know where they are at nights. (Second bad girl) At least, they're not lying on your couch watching TV.
(Sylvia) A cat who’s just been told that he’ll have to eat that special canned cat food that comes from the veterinarian for the rest of his life. (Cat) Shoot me now. (pp. 108-109)
(Sylvia) Rita! Get my smelling salts! (Rita) Ma, you used them up when you discovered that repeal of the estate tax benefits only the very, very rich.